This sign, posted on the fence surrounding Bryant Middle School, offers good advice to passersby, especially considering the fact that warm weather is just around the corner. Soon it will be prime time for rolling around and doing somersaults and lounging in the cool grass—and we don’t want any unpleasant, er … laundry incidents, do we?

No, we don’t.

The sign is even very reasonable, when you think about it, as signs go. It knows you’re going to walk your dog on the lawn. It recognizes the fact that Fido can’t be expected to hold it in. The canine value system is different from ours and, even if you were to cruelly punish a dog for doing something that is natural and can’t be helped, the dog would only develop a generalized sense of shame unrelated to its original crime.

So just remember to carry a plastic bag, is all it’s saying.

I have only one quibble: Considering that it’s posted at a school where grammar is taught, shouldn’t the sign read, “Our children lie here”?